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Shrouded in controversy, the fate of a Farooqia Islamic Center off Lower Sacramento Road has been up in the air for years. When a land use permit to begin construction was finally approved in July, however, would-be neighbors filed an appeal against the project, citing concerns about noise and traffic. That appeal will be approved or denied Tuesday by the county Board of Supervisors, whose members will focus on the specific complaints of noise and traffic. Jack Sieglock, who represents Lodi on the board, said the group will not likely address broader concerns about what the applicants want to do...

SAN FRANCISCO – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced today that the former imam of the Lodi mosque who was arrested in June on immigration violations has been removed from the United States and returned to Pakistan. ICE officials say the removal of Shabbir Ahmed, 38, was completed overnight with his arrival in Pakistan on board a commercial flight escorted by ICE officers. The cleric’s deportation follows an August 15 immigration hearing where he advised Immigration Judge Anthony Murry that he was abandoning his legal fight to remain in the United States and would accept an order of removal...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The second of two Islamic leaders accused by the government of plotting to set up a terror training camp in California has been deported to Pakistan, his attorney said Thursday. Shabbir Ahmed was deported Wednesday night after dropping his opposition to a charge that he overstayed his religious visa while heading a mosque in Lodi, attorney Saad Ahmad said. Ahmed and four other men from the mosque were arrested in June after federal authorities infiltrated the Pakistani community in Lodi and secretly recorded dozens of conversations over three years. Muhammad Adil Khan, another religious leader from Lodi...

In the days after federal agents arrested five residents of Lodi in a terror investigation in June, a clean-cut young man who had befriended the suspects and had spent nights at their homes vanished. Umer Hayat is charged with lying about activities in Pakistan. He hasn't been seen in town since, and now members of Lodi's Muslim community suspect they know why: The man, who called himself Nasim Khan, was a government mole, they believe, an informer whose surreptitious tape recordings of one of the suspects are at the heart of the federal probe. Community members said Khan, who is...

SAN FRANCISCO - Federal prosecutors allege that secret recordings offer further details about a 22-year-old Lodi man they claim attended a jihad training camp designed to teach attendees how to kill people, a newspaper reported in Monday's edition. The latest allegations came Friday from U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott in a court filing, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. In the filing, prosecutors asked a federal judge in Sacramento to continue holding Hamid Hayat and his father, Umer Hayat, 47, without bail. A hearing was scheduled Monday at U.S. District Court in Sacramento, where attorneys for the Hayats were to argue...

A Pakistani cleric facing immigration charges agreed Monday to be deported to his home country, a week after being accused of plotting to open a terrorism camp in Lodi to train followers to kill Americans. Shabbir Ahmed, 39, will be deported on charges unrelated to terrorism: overstaying his religious-work visa while heading a mosque in Lodi.An FBI agent testified last week that Ahmed was acting as an intermediary for Osama bin Laden and other terrorists. The agent refused to testify whether Ahmed was a member of a terror group, saying that information was classified.Ronald LeFevre, chief counsel for the Bureau...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A lead FBI agent on Tuesday linked two local Muslim clerics to the Taliban and Osama bin Laden, contending the two were planning to set up a school near Lodi that would breed anti-American terrorism. The agent testified that Lodi clerics Shabbir Ahmed and Mohammed Adil Khan were prepared to relay information on terrorist plots from sources close to bin Laden. The allegations were dismissed by Ahmed's lawyer, who said the FBI and federal prosecutors have "made the whole thing up." The striking allegations came during an immigration hearing for Ahmed at which Immigration Judge Anthony Murry...

SAN FRANCISCO — Federal prosecutors laid out their case against a Muslim cleric from Pakistan on Wednesday, alleging that he was involved in a northern California terror network with links to terror leader Usama bin Laden (search) and that his group was planning to set up a camp to train followers to kill Americans. Shabbir Ahmed (search), 39, is only charged with overstaying his visa while he was heading a mosque in Lodi, a town of 62,000 about 30 miles south of Sacramento. The allegation about the terrorist camp came from an FBI agent's testimony during the immigration hearing. "Do...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Federal prosecutors said Tuesday that Lodi Islamic leader Shabbir Ahmed was part of a long-term effort to build a Lodi Muslim school to train future jihadists who could commit acts of terrorism in the United States. FBI Special Agent Gary Schaaf testified that Ahmed was involved in a "long-term plan" to set up an Islamic school in Lodi whose students would be "ready to commit acts of violence." Schaaf said that school -- the proposed Farooqia Center in southwest Lodi -- would be patterned after the Islamic university in Pakistan called Jamia Farooqia, which was listed by...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A judge refused to set bail Tuesday for a Muslim cleric from Pakistan who faces deportation and has been accused of planning to set up a camp to train followers to kill Americans. Shabbir Ahmed, 39, is only charged with overstaying his visa while he was heading a mosque in Lodi. The allegation about the terrorist camp came from an FBI agent's testimony during the immigration hearing. "Do I believe he is planning a terror attack?" FBI agent Gary Schaaf said. "That's some of the information that has been provided to us." He testified that Ahmed and...

They've interviewed people, followed people, arrested people and even, some say, directed planes to fly ceaselessly over the city. There is little doubt the FBI has been a powerful presence in Lodi in the days since the arrest of several local Muslims in what has been termed a terror investigation. Two former Lodi imams were also arrested on immigration charges: Shabbir Ahmed, 35, and Mohammad Adil Khan, 47, and Khan's son, Mohammad Hassan Adil, 19. Adil Khan and his son have agreed to be deported rather than face federal charges. The arrest drew a boisterous legion of media -- and...

LTC Joseph Myers, US Army, and former senior DIA analyst, offered some interesting ideas and comments on the Lodi case and al Qaida as a nascent insugency in the US, drawing lessons from Colombia's insurgency and the role of civilian subversive organizations and whether the FBI and our laws are ready to face this threat... Great Quote on the Farooqia Center: I would dissent from that view, and put it this way: "Seemingly legitimate organizations are created for sinister reasons, for insurgent activity" His interview will restream on your computer every 2hrs [+ or - 2hrs from 1845 eastern time]...

LTC Joseph Myers, US Army, and former senior DIA analyst, offered some interesting ideas and comments on the Lodi case and al Qaida as a nascent insugency in the US, drawing lessons from Colombia's insurgency and the role of civilian subversive organizations and whether the FBI and our laws are ready to face this threat... Great Quote on the Farooqia Center: I dissent from that view, and would put it this way: "Seemingly legitimate organizations are created for sinister reasons, for insurgent activity" His interview will restream on your computer every 2hrs [+ or - 2hrs from 1030 eastern time]...

Muslim cleric Mohammad Adil Khan's impending deportation after being linked to an FBI terrorism probe clears up his fate, but it does nothing to resolve the question of what will happen to a school for this city's Islamic community that he was helping to build. Adil Khan, who comes from the same region of Pakistan where most Lodi Muslims trace their roots, was a prolific fund-raiser who had spent several years pulling together more than $300,000 for a school for the Farooqia Islamic Center. More than 400 people came to a county Planning Commission hearing in April on the center,...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - An Islamic religious leader held on immigration charges as part of an investigation into terror activity in the agricultural community of Lodi agreed Friday to be deported to Pakistan along with his son. Muhammed Adil Khan, 47, and his 19-year-old son, Mohammad Hassan Adil, admitted overstaying their visas. In exchange, immigration authorities at a brief hearing in an immigration court dropped other allegations that the two misrepresented themselves to obtain religious visas.

Lodi -- A Muslim cleric with ties to Lodi men caught up in an FBI terrorism investigation agreed today to be deported along with his son rather than fight government immigration charges. Mohammad Adil Khan, 47, and his son, Mohammad Hassan Adil, 19, had been accused of overstaying their visas and of coming to the United States under false pretenses. Both men admitted to visa violations during a court proceeding in San Francisco today. In exchange, the government set aside allegations that Adil Khan lied when he came to the United States and that he had falsely claimed to be...

He is the author of: "Are Plans in Place if Schools attacked?" "Proliferation Terror Time for a New Deterrence Strategy" http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/05/breaking2453439.html "Does al Qaida have nukes?" http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44251 This program will restream every 2hrs from 1006 EST until Monday morning, listen at your convenience.

The young men were at loose ends in Lackawanna, a blue-collar town in upstate New York. Restless and curious about their Islamic heritage, they started meeting secretly with a charismatic Muslim fundamentalist who persuaded them to trek to Afghanistan to attend a military training camp. It's a long way from Lackawanna to Lodi, but there are parallels between the New York case and the unfolding federal probe in the San Joaquin County town. --snip-- The seven Lackawanna men headed for Afghanistan in the spring of 2001, according to news accounts of their case. They told their families and friends in...

The FBI is investigating the possibility that six other Lodi-area men attended terrorist training camps in Pakistan in addition to Hamid Hayat, the initial suspect arrested in the government's ongoing probe of al-Qaida connections in the San Joaquin city. According to federal court documents obtained by The Bee, Hamid Hayat and his father, Umer, claimed the suspected Lodi jihadists reported to Muhammed Adil Khan and Shabbir Ahmed, two imams they say came to the Lodi Muslim Mosque from Pakistan to groom students for terrorist training camps. Khan and Ahmed are being held for allegedly violating immigration laws, and through their...

Recent terror arrests in Lodi, California, show just how dangerous bringing radical Imams into the US can be. There was yet another bust in Lodi, California, of two Muslim religious leaders, father and son Hamid and Umer Hayat. They are alleged to be part of an al-Qaida terrorist cell. Such radical clerics come to the US through ‘religious visas’ that are much easier to obtain than regular visas. This is another story that does not look good for Muslim Americans. Hundreds of mosques in the US are run by radicals and terrorist sympathizers who came from the most oppressive and...